Sean took some fabulous pics of these delightful Long-tailed Tits carefully constructing their nest from lichen and spiderweb (can it get any more ethereal?). Eventually the nest will be a dome with a small entrance hole and by then well-hidden by the rapidly sprouting willow.
Inspired by the Footprint Trust’s ground-breaking scheme in which enthusiastic youngsters adopt the gardens of more elderly folk for the purpose of growing food, Simon proposed to make some changes to Dan’s garden. The pictures below show a team of Island 2000 volunteers digging over the ground, having dragged off the old anti-weed matting.
Next leaves and leaf-mould were collected from outside the Island 2000 workshop to dig into the clay-laden soil. This nutritious material was transported up the hill by environmentally friendly means…
Sam’s mum sent seeds of many exotic varieties, but Simon thought it was safest to start with something simple -
We’ll keep you posted on any exciting developments down on the farm.
Here’s a handy I2K invention, and made entirely from recycled birch too. These are Water Vole spoons. “Don’t they have cutlery of their own?” I hear you cry. Yes of course, but that’s not the point. These are for jamming into river banks water so that the spoon bit lays out just over the water; we bait them with apple, come back the next day and scoop up the droppings left over from the feast-on-the-spoon. Water Vole’s are really rather secretive and hard to survey for, but they do have fairly distinctive droppings and what’s more we create a little mud on the platform, Water Vole footprints
are excellent i.d.
But not just yet. Simon’s off to Kent to talk to The Wildwood Trust about our early thoughts on (re) introducing European Beaver to the Island first. They have proven to be fantastically effective elsewhere at managing small, patchy and derelict wetlands and that’s exactly what we want them for. We have 3 sites in 2 river catchments identified as possibilities for further feasibility work and so far consultees seem interested and supportive however outlandish the scheme may at first appear! Their doing well in Scotland by the way.
Enterprising sparrows have adopted an old swallows nest with interesting results (we found this in a shed while we were searching for Barn Owls). The swallows (writing in transit of course) have complained that the conversion is clearly unsympathetic to the original design. They go further and describe the new build as ‘hideous’ and ‘just typical of those chavvy sparrow types’.
Winter’s an excellent time to have a wander along Ryde sea front and look for birds. There a Mediterranean Gulls all over the place, grebes and sea-ducks just offshore, Redwings galore up in the park and who knows what else. One of the most delightful sights though is a flurry of Sanderling as they rush about at the water’s edge picking up whatever uncovers there. Somehow they look as if they’re on a different speed-setting to the rest of reality. This lovely picture of Sanderlings roosting on a shingle bank isn’t actually from the Island - it’s from Rye Harbour and the fabulous nature reserves there. To see more amazing wildlife photography visit their website: rxwildlife.org.uk
Take a look at this clip. It was filmed on Sean’s camera and shows a stunning cloud of Starlings wheeling about over Newport before dropping out of the sky and into the conifers around the College to roost for the night. The UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan was recently updated. It makes changes to those species and habitats defined as priority species or habitats. Some of the new entries are pretty shocking: Hedgehog, Toad, Eel and the dear old Starling. It’s sad to think that a bird once so fantastically common it was almost a pest is now considered a national target for conservation effort.
Here you can see the progress of The Purple Kite from scraps of plywood pulled out of a skip, to the proud craft bobbing down the river below.
Like many projects, it’s the result of a random turn in a conversation. Simon was talking about beavers and streams, then someone said it would be great if we had an inflatable canoe for surveying wildlife in ponds and rivers. After that someone came up with a challenge: to make our own boat in one day using only recycled materials and anything we could find in the office and then row it across the River Medina and back.
We set to work in our small inventions workshop in East Cowes which SEEDA let us use specifically for making interesting and unlikely creations.
Well, we failed to make it in a day and cheated by buying a box of screws, but as it took shape over the next week our confidence grew that it really would stay afloat with us in it. It started to feel more and more like a proper boat.
The more organic lines can be explained by the fact that there weren’t any plans and there wasn’t a lot of measuring either.
This picture shows Simon ceremonially rubbing down the boat in whiskey prior to painting.
There are two port-holes in the bottom for observing fish, rocks, seaweed and submarines passing beneath us.
At this point the boat had no name, but by means of a democratic process, we arrived at The Purple Kite. The Island 2000 logo is of course a purple kite and it is also, by sheer coincidence, the rarest species of sea-bird to be found in the British Isles, never having been observed or recorded.
Launch day - a last minute attack of responsibility makes us leave behind our recycled life-jackets and ask Offshore Challenges next door if they can lend us something more reliable. They hand us two very swanky-looking flotation devices which, we understand, deploy automatically as soon as they get a whiff of sea-water. Simon instructs us that if it looks like we’re going down, we’re to throw them back onto the land to avoid the punitive cost of recharging the gas canisters.
Luckily, this isn’t necessary as it turns out to be the driest rowing boat we’ve been in. We launch from the slipway just next to the car ferry, waved off in a cloud of sherbet by well-wishers and curious staff from Red Funnel. The oars are on the long side for such a small boat, but The Purple Kite is easy to row and very manoeuvrable, sitting surprisingly high in the water.
If you’d like to see the cross-Medina escapade for yourself, take a look at the Youtube video below.
We’re now planning to produce some commentaries on the wildlife of the Isle of Wight’s rivers, viewed and recorded from the water. The Purple Kite is available for other water-borne tasks or challenges. Any suggestions?
Here is the splendid Petrobius maritimus or Sea Bristletail. It’s really a bigger cousin of the Silverfish you may be more familiar with. These were found holing up in a crack in that big lump of limestone on the way down from Flowers Brook to Steephill Cove. We were walking the coastal path between Ventnor and the Botanic Gardens on Sunday with Friends of Nature members (part of the Gift to Nature scheme - have a look at the website for details) and these fabulous things were one of the winter wildlife highlights.
Deep in the woods perched the pixie. I hid myself in the bracken and waited for his magic to begin when suddenly he turned his impish eye in my direction and spoke: “Can I come down now please, Dad, and why are you crawling about under those leaves?” And so the spell was broken and I returned once more to the human world.
Yes, it’s the mighty Ganoderma - the Artist’s fungus, so called because any patterns or words you might scratch into its soft underside will stay there for good. The sturdy shelf that Jerry’s sitting on here is just the fruiting body, the toadstool bit; the rest is devouring the insides of its Beech tree host. This particular one is in the woods behind the Griffin Pub in Godshill, a place I visited for the first time last year when I went on a fungus foray there run by the IW Natural History Society and led by Dr. Colin Pope. It was absolutely brilliant - loads of weird and wonderful things, plus an excellent rope-swing for the kids and the pub to look forward to on the way back. Toadstools, rope-swings and Guinness - it really doesn’t get any better.
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